Raise Your Glass
by frustratedfruitloop
Summary: They were drunk enough that the handcuffs sounded like a good idea. Post-series. Crack.


Disclaimer: If I owned Leverage, I would sell my soul in order to keep it on air damn it. Leverage is the property of Electric Entertainment, Dean Devlin, John Rogers, Chris Downey, and other related names. I borrow for my own amusement.

Warning(s): Crack. Crackity crack. And lots of liquor.

Note: Written for Leverageland Heist XII, prompt: _wedding or equivalent union ceremony._ I'd like to apologize for what follows after this note. Please don't take it seriously. Only I take this seriously, because it's my actual personal headcanon ever since Nate proposed to Sophie. :p

* * *

It's not known to anyone besides James Sterling, several of his associates, and the rest of the Leverage team (who only caught wind of the news a fortnight later, at the tail end of Nate and Sophie's Honeymoon v1.0), but before the big church wedding held in the Vatican where they were wed as a couple of minor English royalty, Nate and Sophie got married.

Unofficially.

The details of that night are no less memorable but as they were both stone drunk, the details of how they got to an out of the way guest house in the Caribbean islands were naturally quite hazy.

This is how it happened.

* * *

It started with Sophie wanting to 'relive the good old days', which may have sounded romantic when she said it, but it basically meant breaking and entering into museums in the middle of the night. Nate told her so, feeling some leftover guilt at pretending to be the next shift of museum security (poor Kawalsky was getting fired for sure), but he went with her willingly anyway. He always did, he could never resist her when she was all dark-eyed like this, and—

He stumbled on the step leading to the museum's New Collections wing, spilling some whiskey from a glass he was clutching in his hand.

—and _okay_, he was pretty tipsy. Not yet drunk, no, no siree, but he should probably update his current status to Tipsy, with a capital T.

"See, even if I'm not going to steal anything," Sophie was saying, "and I'm _not_," she added for good measure, "_this_ is still reason enough to visit museums at night."

She gestured to the wide, empty wing. "No no god-awful lines, no overbearing curators, no teenagers with their iPads taking pictures everywhere…"

"No school trips or tour buses, or crying babies," Nate added, holding up his glass in a toast.

She grinned and clinked her glass against his. "It's just you, me, and all these gorgeous artwork."

Suddenly, as if to completely contradict what Sophie had just said, the silence was punctured by upbeat piano music and the lyrics

_Yeah, I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars  
On a collision course_

"Bloody ringtone," came a muffled voice. There was a scuffling sound, like someone desperately trying to find the cause of the noise in their pockets as the sound got progressively louder.

_I am a satellite I'm out of control  
I am a sex machine ready to reload_

"Is that… Sterling's voice?" Sophie asked.

"Well," Nate said, glancing at his phone, "Hardison did text us earlier that Sterling was on our tail."

_Like an atom bomb about to  
Oh oh oh oh—_

James Sterling emerged from behind a piece of drapery, pocketing his phone and muttering about ruined entrances.

"That was the best part!" Sophie complained.

"You didn't need to cut it, you know," Nate continued, grinning.

James glared at them. "Not funny."

_It was the funniest thing I've seen in a while_, said Nate's sideways glance at his fiancée.

_I'm positive Sarajevo was funnier,_ said Sophie's little eyebrow raise.

"You did this, didn't you?" James said, brandishing his finger at them like a weapon. "Every two weeks, no matter what I do, the ringtone keeps changing." He started pacing. "It doesn't matter if I change phones, or put it on silent mode perpetually, or _anything_… It's always, _always_ something from Queen's Greatest Hits."

Sophie snorted into her glass, and gave Nate a little nod to amend her earlier glance. This was turning out to be funnier than what went down in Sarajevo.

James stopped pacing, giving up on getting anything out of the two ex-thieves, and jerked a thumb at the drapery. "Anyway, do you mind? I'd really like to do a dramatic entrance."

Nate waved a hand. "Fine."

James retreated back into the curtain.

"We talked about getting him a bell, but this is _much_ better," she whispered to Nate.

Five seconds later, Sterling appeared from the shadows like a villain from the movies. "Well, well, well," he said, "what do we have here?"

"Fuck," said Nate, pretending to panic, but throwing back the last of his whiskey a second later.

"Honestly," Sophie said, "don't you have anything better to do?"

The British Interpol agent gave her an unimpressed look. "I could ask you the same question."

"Did you really think I wouldn't catch up with you?" he continued, pacing the floor. When he was beside the security guard, he nodded and the man retreated to the far corner of the museum. "London, Paris, Barcelona, all of them reported 'Interpol' agents working for me, Interpol agents I had not sent there. A brunette, and a curly-haired man. It was only a matter of time before you hit a museum I was currently overseeing."

"We _have_ helped you out though," Nate said, not in the least bit affected by James's speech.

"Oh?" he raised his eyebrows. "Do tell."

"Remember that highly-publicized case with the missing Renoir?"

"_That_? You mean you were involved in the incident with the—"

"With the pineapple?" Nate finished for him, pouring himself another shot of liquor. "Yes."

James looked as if he wanted to say something and decided that it probably wouldn't even matter anyway. He grabbed Nate's tumbler and downed the contents in one go. Huffing, Nate snatched his tumbler back and poured a liberal amount, shoving the half-full bottle under the lone bench in the wing and glaring at Sterling all the while.

"I ought to arrest you for obstruction of justice."

"Ought to?" Sophie asked, raising her eyebrows. "That's new. Shouldn't you be waving around your handcuffs by now?"

"He can't," Nate said, sharing a grin with her.

"We lost a Renoir." Sterling growled.

"You got a Matisse," the grifter corrected.

James glared at her. The ex-thieves clinked their glasses together.

"So anyway, I hear congratulations are in order?" James looked significantly at Sophie's ring.

Nate frowned at him. "Who told you that?"

"You are _not_ invited," Sophie said sharply.

"Believe me, the pleasure is all mine," he said. "When _is_ the happy day, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Why do you care?"

"If you get married, you'll get off this continent and stop bothering me," James said with a tone of finality before frowning and adding, "... right?"

"We'd be on honeymoon," Nate said, shrugging, groping blindly for Sophie's hand. "Paris, right?"

"Tuscany."

"But you said Paris the last time," he complained.

"Darling, we've been to Paris far too many times to count," Sophie said soothingly.

"Both Paris and Tuscany are still 'on this continent' if you haven't noticed," James interjected before they could get into another argument.

"But we'd be on honeymoon," he repeated, shrugging again.

"I have absolute faith in both of you that you will still manage to bother me even when shagging each other's brains out. Oh wait, isn't that what you're already doing?"

Sophie raised her glass in acknowledgement, grinning triumphantly.

* * *

"What do you mean you don't have a date set yet?" he hissed.

Sophie settled more comfortably against the bench. "We're not in a hurry, James."

"Well, _I_ am."

She frowned and waved an arm vaguely in the air. "You can't rush these things."

"You can, actually," Nate offered from his position on the floor. "Just saying."

James looked expectantly at Sophie. She shrugged. "We're happy where we are right now."

"Why not just get married now then?"

Both Nate and Sophie frowned in confusion. "Not following you," the mastermind said, leaning his head on Sophie's leg.

"It's obviously not that important to you. Why not just get it over with?"

"Why is it so important to you?" Nate asked.

_So that I have a valid excuse to kick you off this continent, that's why._ He'd already secured some favors from a select group of people to keep the two of them… busy for hopefully a month or so, before they got back to civilization.

"Besides, how could we get married here?" Sophie asked, almost at the same time as Nate. "There's no one around to marry us."

James raised his eyebrows and pointed discreetly at himself. "Well."

"Wait, what? You can't marry us," she exclaimed.

"We don't have rings," she said, at the same time Nate correctly pointed out, "You're not ordained."

Sophie glanced at him, eyebrows raised. He leveled a similar look over at her.

"Fine, that too," she conceded.

"It's not like a priest is ever going to marry a pair of criminals," said James, sinking down onto the bench beside the grifter.

"Please," Sophie said condescendingly. "You think I haven't fooled priests before?"

"You sound so proud of that," he muttered. He fished out a pair of handcuffs and played with them for a while, an idea forming in his semi-inebriated state. "You said you don't have rings," he started, "but will these do?"

Sterling could honestly not tell whether that look on Sophie's face was shock or arousal as she slowly considered his proposal—in any case, he did not want to know. Nope. Not going there.

(It was, he determined from the heated look the two shared, the latter.)

"It would be… strangely symbolic," Nate said slowly. "Married in a museum and bound together by handcuffs."

"Are you sure it isn't just one of your kinky fantasies?" Sophie frowned.

"Are you sure it isn't one of _yours_?" he shot back, which earned him a slow, teasing smile.

"I guess that settles it," James declared and stood up, motioning for Sophie to do the same. Then he stepped up on the small bench and raised his hands.

"Sophie Devereaux, do you take this man—"

Nate groaned. "No, no James," he said, drunkenly shooing the other man off the makeshift podium and taking his place. For a man who had already gone from Tipsy to drunk (not yet Drunk, but the night was still young), he had amazing balance. He only swayed several times up on that cushioned bench. "You have to do it right. Start with, 'Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...'"

James looked at him in wonder and shook his head. "Most of the time I forget you were a seminary student."

But Nate was no longer listening and had launched into a lengthy sermon regarding wedding vows. Sterling glanced at Sophie who had decided to sit on the floor, legs tucked beneath her (still elegant even when drunk), and stare entranced at her husband-to-be.

"Are you going to officiate your own wedding?" James asked, half-amused.

"Yes, he is." Sophie said in a strange voice.

Nate and James looked at her askance.

"What? Can't I have a hot priest for my wedding?"

Nate frowned in consternation. "I don't think I like that."

"She means you, you idiot," James pointed out exasperatedly.

"... Ohhhh. You mean me?" He stepped off the bench and sat down on the floor next to her, blinking to ward the lightheadedness away.

"Of course, you silly man," she slurred, bringing his forehead down to hers.

He grinned. "Love you."

"Love you too."

"'m a hot priest?"

"Mmm, thankfully not or this would be soooo wrong," Sophie muttered, cupping Nate's neck and bringing his face down to hers, starting what looked to be like a very drunk (albeit very hot) make out session.

James rolled his eyes and gave it a few seconds. When Nate started to sneak a hand up Sophie's skirt, he said, "Okay, stand up, both of you."

As the two were struggling to stand up, he looked at the handcuffs he held in his hand and decided he was too sober to do this. There was about an inch or so left in the whiskey bottle. Foregoing the glass, he brought the bottle to his lips and finished all the whiskey in front of Nate's mournful gaze.

He glanced at the makeshift altar (a.k.a. the bench) and decided he was now too drunk for it. He stood in front of Nate and Sophie. "Do you, Nathan Ford, take Sophie Devereaux a.k.a. Felicity Shaw a.k.a. Indira Mcallister a.k.a. Katherine Clive a.k.a. Jenny Seymour a.k.a. Charlotte Prentiss, to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

But instead of an "I do," he got, "You forgot Annie Kroy. And… and… and others."

"Who?" Sterling grumbled, searching his memory for an Annie Kroy. _Maltese Falcon, right._ "You have to forgive me, I don't exactly keep a list."

Except, he did. It was five pages long, tacked to a whiteboard back in his Interpol office. But Nate and Sophie didn't need to know that.

"Annie Kroy."

James clenched his fists and looked at the ceiling as if in supplication. "Look, do you want to get married or not?"

"I _like_ Annie Kroy." Nate said, childishly stomping his right foot on the carpeted floor. "You have to include her. Also Michelle, the French dancer."

Sophie swung her head to look at Nate in surprise. "_Michelle_? But you never said anything."

Nate brought a hand to his neck and coughed noncommittally. "Yes, well."

Their would-be priest coughed to get their attention. "From the top. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today—"

"He's really serious about this," Nate stage-whispered.

"Yes, he really is," Sterling said, glaring at him for the interruption. "The sooner I get you to tie the knot, the sooner I'll get a temporary break from your she-shenina-bullshit."

"Poor Interpol agent," Sophie cooed. "Serves you right for using us to get that position."

* * *

Many unsuccessful attempts later, he'd finally recited all of Sophie's aliases to Nate's satisfaction. They had finally progressed to the point where Nate was ready to say, "I do."

Except, instead of "I do," he said, "Technically this isn't lawful in any way."

James pinched the bridge of his nose. "Nathan," he said in a low warning growl.

In a moment of sobriety, Nate grasped Sophie's hand and quirked a corner of his lips in a shy smile. "I do."

"And do you, Sophie Devereaux a.k.a.—" At the impatient wave of Sophie's hand, he cut off saying the rest of the aliases (which was both a relief and a major annoyance as he'd spent the better part of the last half-hour trying to get those names right, damn it), "take this man to be your lawfully-wedded husband?"

"I do."

As solemnly as he could manage, he closed the handcuffs over their opposite wrists. "You may now kiss the bride."

"Wait, we haven't decided on a last name yet."

"C'mon Soph," Nate whined.

"Your last name has no flair at all. Sophie Ford sounds so dull. Plus, Nathan Devereaux sounds so dashing, why do you keep refusing it?"

"YOU MAY NOW KISS THE BRIDE." James repeated loudly over the arguing couple. "Look, you can fight over the last name later."

"He has a point," Nate said right before Sophie pulled on his tie and crashed his lips to hers.

Making sure that the newly-weds were quite preoccupied, James turned to one of the guards who had gathered quite some time ago to observe this bizarre spectacle and said, "If you would be so kind to knock them both out now."

Two dull thumps resounded throughout the empty museum.

"Thank god that's over."


End file.
